Twenty or so years ago I was introduced to the subject of Symbiotic Decision Support Systems by the late Prof. Marvin Manheim of Northwestern University. Over the years this concept has found its way into my notes and presentations usually accompanied by the following illustration.

A recent post by Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Human-Machine Work Teams, reminds me of this earlier work and suggests that "Decision Support" needs to be scrapped as a modifier. We need, particularly within the context of the productivity paradox, to think differently about this pairing of technology and the human.